Getting Healthy Can Keep You Busy!

WOW I went the entire day before I got to my update post! I went to the farmer’s market again and just inhaled! LOL I just filled my fridge yesterday so I really didn’t need anymore fresh produce!

I also got a new page put up on my blog for people with wellness related blogs to add their site. See up in the menu there where it says "Add Your Blog"? It’s real easy… all you have to do is add your link and then grab one of the banners or the text link to put on your site. We’ll have our own little network of wellness sites all joined together in this community. FUN!

So how did I do yesterday?? OOOO I am so glad you asked! I made the most beautiful salad I’ve ever seen and it was delicious. It gave me the idea that when I make up something that I really like I should write it down here, so that led me to think that I need a recipe section as well. So that is what I am going to do. … And if YOU have a vegetarian, vegan, raw or just plain ole healthy recipe you want to share you can put it in the comments section.

So I kind of got lost searching for yoga info and didn’t really get to actually doing anything in the way of exercises yesterday, so today it was the first thing I did when I got my carcass out of bed! 40 minutes on the bike and then 20 minutes of long slow stretching while I lost myself in thought. It was delightful!

And Boy oh Boy you should see the bounty I came home with yesterday. Zucchini, cucumber, green onion, garlic, yam, carrots, yellow and green beans, peas in the pod, romaine, mushrooms, tomatoes, grape tomatoes, new potatoes, grapes, strawberries, mango, black plums, nectarines, lemons, limes, avocado, apples, tangerines, cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano, and thyme, and a bunch of whole grains…. Oh MY!!

Oh and I have to tell you my amusing "breakfast" story! If you’ve been reading along, you know that I’ve been quite fascinated with the whole "eat everything raw" idea. So when I was searching the other day I came across a site that talked about raw grains for breakfast, so I thought, "Self, that is something you should try!" I like to have something substantial in my stomach for breakfats, and apples and oranges don’t seem to be doing it. SO this guy said to get a variety of raw whole grains and seeds, (he listed about 14 different ones) and then grind them in a coffee grinder…. well when I was at the grocery store, in the organic section, I found some "Bob’s Red Mill" 10 grain hot cereal. It had most of the grains the website talked about, and had the added benefit of being already ground, and mixed.

So take 1/3 to 1/2 (I took 1/3) cup of grain mix, add about the same amount of water and soak overnight. I decided that I would add raisins to soak with it, so I added the raisins and water and popped it in the fridge. The next morning I could hardly WAIT to have breakfast! YAY no apples for me! So I grabbed my cereal, popped off the lid, gave it a stir, and put a big spoonful into my mouth.

Well the first think that happened was that the moisture that was in the cereal immediately soaked into my mucous membranes. What was left in my mouth felt like sand. I couldn’t chew, swallow… I could barely move it around off my cheeks and the roof of my mouth! So I immediately got out a pot and spooned the rest in with a bit more water and turned on the burner! That kind of grain is NOT meant to be eaten raw and don’t let anyone trick you into thinking it is!

Anyway, I think I am starting to experience a bit of detox…. today (and yesterday afternoon) my lower abdomen is acting up a bit and churning. I’m also less energetic today. HOWEVER I am STILL a hundred times better than I have been for the last few years so I can handle it!

So now I am going to go write up that salad recipe before I forget, and YES I am going to get to the article on juicing! (*nag nag* )

Hurray it’s Weigh Day!

OH I am excited! DESPITE a very unstructured week of discovery, and a big bag of Salt and Vinegar chips, Friday night at the Mexican restaurant, and several of those disgusting chewy granola, ‘yogurt’ dipped bars that people REALLY want to believe are good for you, I STILL managed to be down 2 pounds!

When you have 65 pounds to lose, 2 pounds does not seem like much, and I am quite sure no one will notice it, (although my husband, God bless him, will SWEAR he can!) but still it is progress in the very first week. My mind vey quickly calculated that if I lose 2 pounds EVERY week I will reach my goal in 8 months, which is 4 months earlier than my goal date of one year!

How did I do yesterday? Well yesterday was my best day, and I think is going to set the pace for what is to come. I have been flirting with the idea of going vegetarian for health reasons, and not because I have anything against eating meat. But I was thinking, if I made vegetarian choices whenever there was a choice, and raw even better, then wouldn’t I be much healthier?

Anyway, yesterday was a critical point in my fascination of the raw food, and vegan/vegetarian way of eating. All day I made raw food choices. (My healthy chocolate is cold processed and heated only enough to pour into the molds so even IT is raw!) I ate a ton of fresh fruits and vegetables and drank lots of alkaline water from my ionizer. I also had a great big mug of Waiora‘s Detox Tea before I went to bed. I will admit that I woke up at 2:30 AM and I was hungry. So I got up and cooked a small bowl of large flake oatmeal in a bit of milk and ate that. It filled up my belly and I went back to sleep quite peacefully.

This morning I will admit to waking up energized EVEN THOUGH my night sleep was broken. THAT is a huge deal for me, since I have been exhausted for months and months now. I even NAP most afternoons for heaven’s sake! So today I feel so great! I am going to go shopping this afternoon and get better prepared for my raw, whole food, vegetarian experiment. I already have a juicer, and yesterday I ordered a dehydrator. I am going to see if I can get a coffee grinder and a grain mill. The coffee grinder should be relatively easy to find, but I suspect the grain mill will be a different story. (I really live in an area that is know for their ‘meat and potatoes’ lifestyle… fishermen, farmers.. you get it!)

I am also going to be on the lookout for a good raw vegan recipe book. I MAY get lucky and find something like that here! There’s always Amazon, or Chapters online if all else fails!

Have a great day all…. I’ll be back later on with my articles of the day. Today I might do one about juicing since that’s going to be on my mind! :-)

Could the Vegetarian Lifestyle be for me?

I find myself increasingly drawn to vegetarianism. I am very fascinated with the whole idea of eating nothing but nourishing, nutrition packed fruits and vegetables interspersed with whole grains. Today I had absolutely nothing to eat EXCEPT raw fruits and vegetables, a few pieces of my yummy healthy chocolate, and a piece of cheddar cheese this evening, only because I was a little hungry, and had a craving for salt.

It’s not that I have anything against meat eaters, or meat for myself. I eat meat, but I am enjoying it less and less, only because I am immersing myself in vegan and vegetarian research. I mean… LOOK at that picture over there. I feel healthier just LOOKING at a picture of food like that. First of all, it is visually appealing, second of all, a bounty like that smeels really great, and you know smell is the FIRST taste you get of your food. I see mostly fruits in that picture, but vegetables have the same visual and olfactory appeal.

I found myself ALL DAY researching vegetarianism, and raw foodism. I signed up for a bunch of newsletters and the more I read the more excited I got. It seems kind of a silly thing to be excited about. But why not… whenever you make a drastic lifestyle change like I have been making, you pretty much think about it all the time. At least that’s been my experience. So if I need to be obsessed about anything, and I need to lose weight, it seems that fruits and vegetables are a good thing to be excited about!

So what about the vegetarian lifestyle. I won’t call myself a vegetarian, because to me that denotes a certain attitude. Yes that’s it… vegetarianism seems like an attitude. So I’m not a vegetarian. I think I am just going to choose fresh fruits and vegetables whenever possible. That feels right to me for now.

if I am presented with a chunk of cow or pig (hehe) well I may or may not eat it. Vegetarianism (for health) doesn’t need to be a religion. It will be a meal by meal choice. I do think that just for the first 30 days or so (maybe 6 weeks? to form a habit) I will try to be strict with myself, and make a conscious decision with every bite to stay with the vegetarian choices. I think it needs to be that way for the first while because habit always wants to pull us back in, and refined food withdrawal is likely.

So first I have some whole food, raw organic vegan powdered drinks and protein shakes on the way. (well I don’t know if the shakes are raw or not but I do know the drinks are. I am going to talk about those a bit later as well, because I have already had some samples and they are TRULY amazing and very yummy! But I think I will save that discussion for my next post on ‘juicing’. You know, vegetarianism is so easy, and SO appealing right now, being that it is summer time in Canada, and the bounty of fresh is plentiful, but what will it be like in November through to June? I guess I will wait and see. It’s not like we can’t get produce here. it’s just that it isn’t as fresh, and it is very expensive. With the cost of gas going through the ceiling, and the flooding all through the farmer’s fields in Canada, and mid-west USA, I dread the food costs this winter.

Oh well…. aren’t you laughing at me worrying about that already?? I just realized what I am doing… did you recognize it? I just gave myself an escape hatch in case the whole vegetarian thing doesn’t work out for me. I’ve created a perfect scape-goat in case of failure! That is so typical and GOOD FOR ME for recognizing it! You know, here is going to be the best thing ever about writing down my thoughts every day…. I will be able to recognize bahaviours that are designed to take me and hopefully stop them before they manifest a s a reality!

So back to vegetarianism…. it will be important to make sure I am getting all of the nutrients I need. I have see it said that B12 may need to be supplemented. B12 is mostly in organ meats, although wild rainbow trout and salmon have decent levels of B12, and I do love fish!

I have a number of supplements I take that I will talk about in another post as well, but one thing I know and that is that protein is NOT an issue like some people believe. Plants in variety will give us all of the amino acid complexes that we need to live.  At any rate I do have my back up protein shakes on the way, and I will probably have those frequently in smoothies and alone as part of a meal, so I am unconcerned about that.

So overall I think I have convinced myself that fresh organic fruits and veggies, leafy greens and sprouts are going to be a popular way to eat. I’m kind of excited about it!

I would love to know what you all think!